Turning The TV Off The US Empire Part 2: The Rise of The Multipolar World
Read Part One of Turning the TV off The Empire here
In part one of Turning The TV Off the US Empire, it was illustrated that regardless of the party colors and partisan commitments of the head warden, the deathly machinery known as US domestic and foreign policy, continues on unabated. Part two of Turning The TV Off The US Empire expands on the discussion of rising global multipolarity and the declining influence of the Western, US led, imperial order.
The past 4 years of the Biden administration has occurred amidst an explosion of resistance movements that have challenged American hegemony, as well as the rise of the multipolar world order, both of which are emblematic of the ongoing decline of the American empire. At the same time, the decline of empire will not be a smooth process and will be marked by inter-imperialist rivalry, geopolitical contestation, and increased repression of radical activism in the imperial core. The western propaganda apparatus that controls our media will increasingly grow, becoming bolder in its attempts to manufacture global consent and manipulate reality by telling you not to believe what you see with your own two eyes.
This is evident in the evolution of radical organizing in America between Trump’s first and now upcoming presidential terms. While the first Trump administration inspired an explosion of left-wing mobilization, much of that energy dissipated as mainstream liberals rested on their laurels after President Biden’s inauguration, subdued by the Democrats' empty rhetoric and false promise. Any potential radical energy that was left was swallowed into the non-profit industrial complex, conscripting organizers into serving liberal donor interests, rather than that of the masses. Instead of meaningful policy aiming to reduce the amount of extrajudicial state-sanctioned police murders of unarmed Black men and women, the main outcome of the 2020 George Floyd protests turned out to be DEI initiatives primarily benefiting the careerist aspirations of the Black/POC professional and managerial class. We can point to the purchase of the secret ‘Campus’ mansion by the executives running the BLM Global Network Foundation, following a 66.5 million dollar influx in donations following the murder of George Floyd as a prime example of the grifting potential of careerist activists. In the summer of 2021, BLM Canada announced it was purchasing a mansion in downtown Toronto as well.
While the DEI initiatives have worked well in co-opting a national struggle against police brutality, even these milquetoast ‘wins’ will not last the next few years. Black communities and radical organizers will be facing increased state repression, with no allies in progressive politics across the western world (US, Canada, Europe). The election of Donald Trump will also undoubtedly embolden the organized white supremacists embedded in law enforcement and border control agencies, increasing the risk of extrajudicial state violence against racialized minorities. Trump’s administration has also promised an impending crackdown on Pro-Palestinian protesters with draconian threats of deportation, and any emerging anti-imperialist struggle will face similar challenges. For those of us living in the belly of the beast, it is imperative that we critically assess the successes and failures of specific movements, strategies, and tactics and return to a politics that centres the working classes' material conditions rather than the aspirations of contemporary North American versions of neocolonial elites. The struggle of the ‘Uhuru 3,’ who are radical African organizers prosecuted by the Biden administration for being “Russian agents,” is illuminating when juxtaposed against BLM organizers and is a foreboding sign of what is expected to come.
Russia
The prosecution of the Uhuru 3 is reflective of the increasing skepticism and criminalization of anyone who appears sympathetic to Russia, China, and Iran, all of which are classified by the American government as the predominant threats to the empire. While the Uhuru 3 were successfully acquitted of all charges, their plight is reflective of the re-emergence of the paranoid and insecure McCarthyism that defined the Cold War.
To be clear, the Russia question has exposed contradictions amongst the American ruling class: Biden’s policy of backing Ukraine to the hilt has been widely supported amongst the political establishment, but Trump’s campaign seized on isolationist sentiments to generate political opposition towards Ukraine. However, Trump’s alleged affinity for Putin seems mostly driven by vengeance towards the Democratic-driven “Russia-gate” scandal that dominated his first term. Despite the fanatics of Western liberals, Trump mostly continued Pentagon policy towards Ukraine and Russia in his first term. This time around, Trump’s approach to Russia and the NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine will definitely be the most visible shift from the Biden administration.
To counter this, Biden authorized the transfer of long-range missiles to Ukraine immediately after the 2024 election, marking a dangerous escalation towards nuclear war. It also will fan the flames of the revanchist Ukrainian extremism, fostered by NATO through their arming of Ukrainian Neo-Nazi elements such as the AZOV battalion, that will inevitably wrack Europe amidst the rise of anti-immigrant and Christofascist sentiments once the war concludes. However, it is crucial to remember that the Russia-Ukraine war has become polarized along partisan lines, and has allowed Trump to portray himself as anti-war. When reviewing the track record of Trump’s first administration, it's abundantly clear that he is no dove.
His first administration continued Obama’s drone warfare campaign as well as the Saudi-UAE genocide in Yemen, and he personally pardoned a number of American soldiers charged with war crimes in an explicit endorsement of their cruel and inhumane abuses of civilians in Iraq & Afghanistan. In a significant escalation of hostilities with Iran, Trump ordered a drone strike on Qassem Soleimani, who was a national hero in Iran for his role in the defeat of ISIS. As head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani was a state actor, and his assassination was akin to assassinating the CIA Director. This move was a major departure from the non-state actors typically targeted for assassination by US intelligence actors.
China
Rather than being rooted in anti-war principles, Trump’s impending turn towards Russia is being advocated for by some in his coalition as a way to re-focus on what the Pentagon considers its biggest geopolitical threat: China. The unstoppable rise of China as a global power was met with a “Pivot to Asia” approach under the Obama administration, to being openly declared as a military and economic threat to America under the first Trump administration. Biden has largely toned down the rhetoric while maintaining the aggressive posture, imposing his own tariff regime against China in a dramatic turn against the neoliberal free trade consensus of the past 40 years.
Despite Western media narratives, America is actually the aggressor in the Asian South Pacific, and Biden has facilitated military arrangements and relations with their client states of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia to further encircle China over the past 4 years.
The question of Taiwanese independence has re-emerged in American political discourse, purely driven by Taiwan’s dominance in the semiconductor industry. However, while a new era of inter-imperialist rivalry and geopolitical re-ordering has the potential to open up avenues for conflict, even American military analysts lack the confidence that the United States would be able to emerge successful in military conflicts against China, over Taiwan, amidst the spectre of inevitable global economic collapse. As the fallout over the Ukraine war demonstrates, the American masses have a limited appetite for funding wars overseas, despite the humanitarian “defending democracy” rhetoric promoted by the western propaganda apparatus.
On the other hand, The rise of China and BRICS have and will continue to enable countries of the Global South to assert their sovereignty and autonomy against the American global order simply by providing diplomatic and economic alternatives. Alternative geopolitical formations may provide opportunities for diplomatic and political solutions to current crises produced by the unipolar order. China’s approach of mutually advantageous infrastructure investments and the Belt-And-Road Initiative has the potential to facilitate the national and regional economic and social development of the Global South, much more than the parasitic Western neoliberal austerity and humanitarian aid/debt-slavery agendas they have been subjected to over the past several decades. In 2023, China secured a significant feat in brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, flexing their diplomatic abilities in a region where America has long enjoyed unparalleled dominance, and highlighting that China has more to offer to the world.
Over the previous decade, the IMF’s own reports indicate that China’s share of the debt load at 6% is a fraction of the total debt held by the West, shattering the Western debt-trap narrative. The Forum on China and Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in September of 2024, brought African heads of state to Beijing in a historic summit that saw China reaffirm its commitments to the African continent, a notable departure from the decades of patronizing neocolonialism of the West. In the 21st century, amidst the decline of neoliberal globalization, China’s has embarked on the most successful poverty alleviation and wealth redistribution program in history which 800 million people out of poverty, the largest reforestation program in history, as well as the largest expansion of public infrastructure in history, demonstrating an alternative development path to the rest of the world. While it is important to remember that China as a nation-state will prioritize its sovereign interests and its engagements with the Global South should be considered in that context rather than on the basis of mere altruism, the presence of an alternative to Western capital expands the horizon of possibilities for nations in the Global South.
The Rest of the World:
Beyond Russia and China, there has been and will be an explosion of resistance movements against Western hegemony as the United States continues its decline. A cursory overview of contemporary resistance movements below, offers a glance at the will of the people being fought for and advanced against the forces of imperialism and neo colonialism across the globe.
The Israeli War on Gaza has been the most significant global geopolitical development that has occurred over the past year. The Biden administration has overseen a horrific genocide orchestrated by international fugitive Netanyahu, claiming the lives of over 200k Palestinains. Trump’s administration has pledged to stay the course, accepting a 100 million dollar campaign donation by Israeli oligarchs in return for facilitating the formal annexation of the West Bank. However, this does not spell the end of the Palestinian resistance.
Hamas’ military operation in 2023 courageously launched the Palestinian struggle back into the global consciousness, forcefully reintroducing the Palestine Question and rallying masses across the world to stand with them. While Trump has endorsed Israel’s genocidal designs towards Palestine, Palestinians have shown the world that their destiny is in their hands. The Axis of Resistance has also remained steadfast, curbing the worst of Israel’s imperial expansionist designs into Lebanon and neighbouring regions. The Houthis blockade of the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestine has completely disrupted global shipping trade to the tune of billions and strangled Israeli ports. While the collapse of the Syrian Arab Republic in December of 2024 has strengthened Zionist and American power in the Middle East, the region is under active contestation and will be rewritten by the resistance of the masses, and not just by imperial stenographers.
Western military interests have been threatened in West Africa as well. The formation of the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES) composed of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso in 2024, and their successive evictions of the French military and the retaking control over their bases for the first time in decades, is a material example of decolonization. In the past six months, Niger has retaken control of its uranium mines from French interests, and Mali has jailed executives of Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold mining corporation headquartered in Canada, for tax and revenue evasion. Alongside their efforts to re-assume control over national resources and redistribute wealth to the masses, the AES has revitalized the anti-colonial Pan-African movement for sovereignty and self-determination.
Last month, Niger hosted the Niamey Conference bringing together liberation movements from across the Pan-African world, issuing the Niamey Declaration and firmly establishing the AES as one of the most promising fronts of a rising resistance struggle on the African continent as well as the global stage. Should the AES be successful in securing their sovereignty over critical minerals and defending the gains of their revolution against imperialist incursion, it would herald a new dawn on the African continent. Anti-imperialist sentiments have already taken root elsewhere on the continent in part inspired by the AES: In Kenya, a mass uprising against an IMF-written financial bill in 2024 resulted in the burning of the parliament, forcing the revocation of the bill.
Another promising area of global resistance to American hegemony has been in Latin America, where the United States has been incessant in its efforts to vanquish any emergence of leftist anti-imperialist governments for decades. Trump has appointed Cuban Senator Marco Rubio, pivotal in his involvement in the 2018 failed coup attempt in Venezuela, as Secretary of State, signalling a re-focusing of the State Department’s resources towards shoring up American power in Latin America. However, despite the campaign of maximum aggression against Venezuela’s Maduro, including a mythical bipartisan attempt to recognize Juan Guaido as the legitimate president in Trump’s first term, Maduro has held on. Cuba has also held on, amidst increased aggression under the Biden administration, and has remained central to global resistance movements. Extremist elements within the Republican party have even called for drone strikes against Mexican cartels, despite America’s central role in global arms and illicit drug trafficking, exemplified by the complete collapse of the global opium/heroin trade following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The 2019 coup attempt against Bolivia’s indigenous socialist president Evo Morales, fueled by interests in the discovery of lithium deposits, was roundly defeated by the mass mobilizations of people that took to the streets and reclaimed their democracy. The 2020s have witnessed a rise of left-wing governments propelled into power by mass movements across Latin America, including Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Indigenous and Afro-descendent land defenders in autonomous communities across Latin America have remained steadfast in their resistance to neocolonial extractivist objectives of multinational mining companies, a struggle that must be learned from and defended as America turns its focus towards Latin America in search of critical minerals.
While the aforementioned left-wing governments have so far been more cooperative rather than confrontational with American hegemony like Cuba and Venezuela, a disposition towards national sovereignty common to left-wing Latin American social movements in contrast to the elite Western sycophants among the right-wing, has the potential to cause cracks in America’s subordination of the continent. The failures of Argentina’s libertarian extremist government headed by President Javier Milei, the only country to buck the recent left-wing trend, will serve to discredit neoliberal free-market ideology and pose as a foreboding example to the Latin American masses.
In conjunction with the resistance of the masses of the Global South, the rise of the BRICS order with its explicit goals of de-dollarization over the coming years might strike the final death knell against the Western unipolar order. Trump campaigned on a promise of levying tariffs and initiating a trade war against its 3 closest trading partners - China, Mexico, and Canada. Doing so would inevitably have disastrous effects on the United States, and the economic instability may lead to the toppling of the United States Dollar from its perch as the global reserve currency. The rise of alternative financial arrangements and systems to facilitate global trade would degrade America’s ability to wage war through economic sanctions, which for the past few decades have been used to orchestrate the economic immiseration of millions across the Global South as well as the under development of any nation that has stood in its way.
However, while the BRICS is at the forefront of the emergence of the multipolar world, we must critically assess their developments and contradictions. The ascension of the economic powerhouses of UAE & Saudi Arabia into the bloc is troubling considering their imperialist and extractive violence against Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan, the latter of which is currently facing the largest humanitarian displacement crisis on Earth. Brazil has also vetoed the inclusion of Venezuela in a bid to maintain neutrality amidst another round of efforts to topple Maduro organized out of Washington D.C, highlighting contradictions within BRICS. On the other hand, the acceptance of Iran and Cuba highlights the BRICS stance of opposition to American unipolarity. As an example of the threat BRICS poses to the US empire, America has threatened to punish South Africa for its relationship with BRICS nations.
The next four years of the Trump administration will inevitably reshape international geopolitics as well as the global economic order. The rise of the multipolar order, coupled with burgeoning resistance movements across the world, will chart a new chapter in the course of modern humanity. This will not be easy nor painless; we are entering a period of active geopolitical contestation and inter-imperialist rivalry, and the decline of the American empire and the restructuring of the global order will have unforeseen impacts on different populations. As the world shifts under our feet, mass movements must remain clear-eyed in their commitment to ensuring this new chapter is grounded in justice and universal humanity.
Critically reflecting on the past 40 years of American unipolar hegemony reveals the economic and political destruction of an exorbitant amount of nations and the cumulative death toll of millions in the global south. Any departure from the current global state of affairs will undoubtedly benefit the masses of the global majority outside the Western world.
Another world is rising on the horizon, and we must do everything we can to bring it into existence.